WATERBURY, Vt. — After 17 years together, Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan couldn’t wait another minute to get married. So they didn’t.
With Vermont’s new law allowing same-sex marriage only a minute old, they tied the knot in a ceremony at a rustic lodge, becoming one of the first couples to legally wed under a law that took effect at midnight Monday.
Vermont is one of five states that now allows same-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa are the others. New Hampshire’s law takes effect Jan. 1, 2010.
Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who’s also a Justice of the Peace, presided.
“It feels wonderful,” said Slimback, 38, an out-of-work Teamster who is taking Sullivan’s last name as his own. “It’s a day I’ve been long waiting for, and a day I truly honestly thought would never come.”
Slimback said he and Sullivan, 41, both originally from Philadelphia, have long wanted to cement their relationship with a wedding, but since they couldn’t legally marry in New York, they chose to wed even before Vermont’s gay-marriage era officially dawned.
From union to marriage
Vermont, which invented civil unions in 2000 after a same-sex couple challenged the inequality of state marriage statutes, was a mecca for gay couples who to that point had no way to officially recognize their relationships.
Since then, other states have allowed gay marriage, as did Vermont, which in April became the first state to legalize gay marriage through a legislative decree and not a court case.
Some couples — including many who obtained civil unions in Vermont — plan to return to the state to get married. But most are in no rush. City and town officials say only a handful of licenses had been issued to same-sex couples in anticipation of Tuesday’s start.
“We’ve waited a long time to do this — basically, our whole lives,” Slimback said Monday. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to actually solidify it.”
He and Sullivan said they never wanted to obtain a civil union because they believe that’s a kind of second-class recognition.
A handful of members of Westboro Baptist Church, an antigay group that claims U.S. combat deaths are God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality, demonstrated in Montpelier, Vermont’s capital, Tuesday. Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, brought her own 7-year-old son and three others to hold “God Hates America” and “Fags are Beasts” signs in protest of the same-sex-marriage law going into effect that day.
About 100 counterprotesters from the University of Vermont and the local LGBT and ally communities demonstrated across the street from the Westboro members in support of marriage equality.
As the debate on marriage equality wended its way through Vermont Tuesday, one national company made its stance on the issue well-known.
Hubby-hubby
Ice-cream conglomerate Ben & Jerry’s announced this week that it will be selling its popular Chubby Hubby flavor under a new name in Vermont Scoop Shops this month: Hubby Hubby, in celebration of the state’s historic step.
“At the core of Ben & Jerry’s values, we believe that social justice can and should be something that every human being is entitled to,” said Walt Freese, Ben & Jerry’s CEO. “From the very beginning of our 30-year history, we have supported equal rights for all people. The legalization of marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont is certainly a step in the right direction and something worth celebrating with peace, love and plenty of ice cream.”
Ben & Jerry’s launched the renaming campaign in partnership with the national Freedom to Marry, and will be directing customers to visit the agency’s Web site to learn more about national marriage-equality efforts.
“It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full, but the most important thing that all us ice-cream lovers can do to support the freedom to marry is speak with people we know about why marriage matters and the need to end marriage discrimination in every state,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. “Thanks to Ben & Jerry’s, starting those needed conversations has never been sweeter, and thanks to Freedom to Marry, we all now have a great excuse to eat more ice cream.”
PGN writer Jen Colletta contributed to this story.